Public Statements

One Year Later: The Time to Stop ObamaCare is Now

Statement

- One year ago President Obama launched a radical government takeover of our nation's health care system. His administration wasted no time planting the seeds of ObamaCare's bureaucracy. For the past year your tax dollars have been supporting the escalation of a nightmarish system that will eventually swallow up private markets and pave the road to single-payer, government-run health care.

The first year of ObamaCare has already caused some private health insurance companies to stop selling new policies. It has sent coverage premiums skyrocketing, taking a larger chunk out of your paycheck and forcing untold numbers of small businesses to stop hiring and even let go of workers. And that's just the beginning. The Congressional Budget Office recently acknowledged that ObamaCare could lead to the loss of 800,000 jobs by the end of the decade.

Long before 2020 ObamaCare will have forced itself into everyday life by vastly increasing the number of people who depend on government subsidies for their health care. Government-run health exchanges will push private coverage out of the way and most Americans will get their health insurance through those exchanges. There will be no turning back the newest entitlement, along with its taxes, mandates, and the budget-busting cost it will lay at the feet of taxpayers.

That's why the time to stop ObamaCare is now. House Republicans recently missed a chance to use the leverage of a government-funding resolution to force a vote on defunding ObamaCare. Another one is approaching and we must stand our ground in April. But the battle to stop ObamaCare is happening on another front as well: 48 states have already accepted at least $1 million each of your tax dollars to help them plan their health exchanges. Only the Governors of Florida and Alaska have said "no."

Many of the states taking this money are led by Governors who oppose ObamaCare and Attorneys General who are fighting it in court. Yet they are taking the money because they believe it will give them an inside chance to fight ObamaCare's onerous regulations. The trouble is the health care law was designed for federal control. States have been told they can make tougher mandates or create their own single-payer system, but creating a health exchange that eliminates ObamaCare's job-crushing regulations is not an option.

By accepting ObamaCare grants and planning for health care exchanges, states are giving credibility to a travesty that they will not be able to undo. In a vain attempt to hedge their bets, some opponents of ObamaCare are actually breathing life into the monstrosity that will soon cross a tipping point and become yet another unstoppable government entity.

Since ObamaCare became law, Minnesota has received $222 million in new grant funding from the Department of Health and Human Services. Those are your taxpayer dollars flowing to new plans and programs that will require ongoing taxation and spending to maintain. I have urged Governor Mark Dayton to reject funding that will enmesh our state more deeply in the apparatus of ObamaCare. But this is not just a Minnesota problem. And that's why I'm urging all of those Governors who oppose ObamaCare to join Florida and Alaska in rejecting HHS funds that are only meant to reinforce the federal beachhead which will soon become impenetrable.

ObamaCare cannot be fixed, and collaboration for the hope of improving it should not be an option. It must be dismantled, defunded, and disposed of now, before it becomes the massive crown jewel of socialism that it was intended to be by President Obama.